The past few days have been marked by "riots" in various parts of London and also in a number of other cities in England. While the initial incident seemed to be related to a police shooting, many of the subsequent "riots" appeared to just be thugs looting and robbing - with no political aspect.
It seemed to be only on the other side of London, but then there was a report of the #65 bus being burned in Ealing. This certainly caught our attention as this is the very same bus we take to get from our house to the Richmond train station to catch the tube to London. Ealing is at the far end of the bus route, but we have actually been to Ealing and caught the bus from there. Somehow it all seemed much closer.
We have been very cautious about our movements and it just so happened that we only went into London once during the four days. The one time we did go in, we left our jewelry and wallets at home and just took some money and IDs. There was no real evidence of anything going on. Tourists were still everywhere and things seemed very much as normal - at least in the part of London we visited that day. When we returned to the Richmond train station, we saw "bobbies" posted about every 30 yards or so along the main shopping street in Richmond - keeping the peace, I am sure. There have been no incidents in Richmond that we know of.
Parliament has been called back into session. The police force are all put on the streets to quell the rioting. By the fourth night things seemed to have calmed down although there were isolated incidents.
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